


Cassandra

by queanofswords



Series: Noble Verse [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Pete's World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queanofswords/pseuds/queanofswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world dominated by technology, Amelia is guided by her visions and the stars. Almost everyone in Leadworth thinks that she's mad. She sees ghosts, faeries, and creepy crawlies. She hears voices coming from the crack in her bedroom wall, and she knows things that no one else knows. The only person who believes her is Rory, and he is the only one who keeps the shadows at bay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Noble Verse continuity of Pete's World stories. It can be read before or after _The Raggedy Man Takes A Promise_. Teen rating is entirely for some descriptions of violence. Oddly enough (for me) there isn't any cursing to speak of. Hunh.

Amelia Pond was a nutter, in the most positive sense of the word. To see the world through her eyes was to see a place full of wonder, imagination, insight, and brilliant possibility.

That was what people who liked her thought.

People who did not like her thought that she was odd, irrational, difficult, and perhaps just a bit dangerous. Mad Amelia Pond, destined to live in a cottage full of cats deep in the dark woods. Singing in tongues. A favourite broomstick hanging above the door. Cackling a bit.

There was a part of her that enjoyed the image of herself as an aged crone, frightening young children. However, life did not follow the rules of legend, not in her experience, disappointing as that was.

Just the same, Amelia did not see things the way other people did. As a child, it had been seen as encouraging, touted as creativity, the sign of great art to come, perhaps. But as she'd got older and her fancies had persisted, Aunt Sharon had become worried. People without expertise in psychology or psychiatry (but doctorates in shoving their noses into other peoples' business) had thrown around words like 'attention deficit', 'obsessive compulsive', 'autistic', even 'manic depressive'. Each psychiatrist—and there had been several—had a theory of their very own to explain the enigma of little Amelia, but there was, in Amelia's own opinion, only one person who had ever got it right.

Of course, if there was one thing that all the psychiatrists agreed upon, it was that the Raggedy Man was not real.

Over time, Amelia had never been cured of anything, except perhaps her habit of truthfulness. There was no point in telling people what was true if they weren't going to listen, so why waste her breath? If Jeff's gran didn't want to know what had really happened to her dog, then she didn't deserve to know.

By the time Amelia had finished school, she had had no fewer than four different psychiatrists, and a general diagnosis of dissociative disorder, combined with half a dozen other mental maladies. She had numerous courses of medication, most of which she had never actually taken in good faith after her aunt had stopped hovering over her with the pill bottles. It wasn't entirely out of rebellion; anti-depressants made her feel nauseated and sad, anti-anxiety medication made her anxious, and antipsychotics kept her from seeing things that were there. She continued to pick up her prescriptions from the little chemist's. She had a large box with smaller boxes inside to divide the dosages, and she was very careful to let somebody see her take her pills at least once every week. Different people, different days of the week. She had a whole rota set up.

§

Amelia Pond had two friends in all of Leadworth—which, given its size, was not an entirely unimpressive percentage of the per capita. One was a girl, Melody Zucker. If Amelia was considered mad, she was considered psychotic. Melody wasn't _odd_ the way Amelia was, but she delighted in causing trouble, and running circles around people. She performed abysmally in school, but she was definitely the smartest person that Amelia knew.

The other friend was a boy named Rory Williams. He was quiet and thoughtful, and most people considered him a bit bungling and hopeless. His mother was dreadfully worried every time she saw her precious son with _those girls_. Mrs. Williams' attitude towards Amelia was magnanimous but mostly pitying. She was downright terrified of Melody. The two of them together only spelled trouble.

The thing was, bad as Melody (Mels) could be—she enjoyed pranks with high collateral damage—she very rarely dragged Amelia or Rory along. Rory, who hated to be in trouble, appreciated her courtesy. Amelia scolded Mels the moment she returned from hijinks. Mels always laughed and shrugged off their concerns, usually before consuming most of the food in the Pond house and getting Amelia into trouble with her aunt. Amelia usually got out again by explaining that Mels had been hungry, and it was only fish fingers, anyway. It wasn't as if Mels' foster family ever came to her rescue.

Amelia had exactly two friends in the world; the fact that they also happened to be the only two people in the village whom people looked upon as equally or perhaps even more hopeless than she was… Well, maybe that meant she wasn't very nice. Amelia didn't see the point of nice. Nobody else was, not really, even if they appeared so.

Except Rory. Maybe it wasn't because Rory did as she told him, even when he disapproved, or that from the time she had come to this sleepy village at the age of seven, he had been the only person who hadn't told her that her stories were childish, or too frightening, or worse, not real. She liked that he listened.

Amelia didn't see the world the way that other people did. Everyone knew that. She saw faeries in the garden, or raggedy men wearing green in the woods. She saw Nick Greenlake burying Mr. Timmet the Pomeranian under the amaryllis in his mother's garden, despite the fact that she had never been to the Greenlakes' house. It had been in his guilty eyes, clear as if somebody had pressed 'play' and set the story to chilly music. When she was thirteen, she knew that the butcher was having an affair with the young woman behind the post office counter. The morning of the day Mrs. Poggit died, Amelia saw the old woman staring at her through the window of her aunt's house, a glassy and vacant look in her eyes.

That kind of thing had got worse the older she got. She didn't stop seeing faeries—they were big and nasty, and they liked to nick Aunt Sharon's cucumbers—but there was more and more to see. People's secrets, people's pasts, people's futures. 

After the incident with Mrs. Poggit's son, she kept most of it to herself. The day of the funeral, Amelia very solemnly told the grieving fifty-year-old that she'd seen his mother's fetch right before she'd died. He'd become furious, cursing her in the churchyard, calling her names, the very least of which questioned her sanity. It had been all anyone in the village had talked about for a week.

Aunt Sharon had gone about in a state of martyred shame: 'Oh, poor me! Alas, my barmy niece has embarrassed me yet again! Such a trial! But I soldier onward! My brother's child, my cross to bear.' Mortified and desperate to avoid the staring and the whispers and, worst of all, the _pity_ , Amelia stayed home from school. She was fourteen years old, skinny, with big feet and ginger hair, taller than all the children her age. An awkward place to start from, that age and those features, but to add on the burden of her… imagination. It was unfair. Her life wasn't magical, it was miserable. She didn't _ask_ to see things, she just _did_.

After three days, Rory had come to the house with the blue door to see the mad girl. Amelia didn't answer the doorbell, or the knocking. It wasn't until he started chucking pebbles at her bedroom window that she dragged herself out from under the covers.

"Go away!" she shouted down from the window.

Weedy little Rory with his mop of hair and his big eyes looked up at her. "You weren't at school again."

"I'm not coming out."

"I've brought your homework for you." He held up a bundle of books and papers that he'd carried all the way here.

"Then I'm _definitely_ not coming out." She abandoned the window and flopped down on her bed to sulk.

His voice came faintly. "Can I come inside, then?"

"No!"

There was a short silence, then Rory called, "Do you want to play Raggedy Man?"

Amelia flew back to the window in a rage. She leaned out and shouted, "Why would you think I would ever, _ever_ want to play that _ever_ again? Go away!"

Rory put the pile of books and papers down on the grass. "I thought it might cheer you up," he said, sheepishly.

"I'm too old for games."

"Okay." Why didn't he just go away? "Mels got detention again today."

Curiosity overrode anger and mortification. "What happened?"

"She kept pretending to talk to Mrs. Poggit's ghost."

Amelia's insides hurt. "Why?" 

Rory shrugged. "Don't know. It was a bit funny, though."

She glared down at him. "You and Mels had a fine time, then," she said icily.

His eyes went wide with chagrin. "No! I didn't— She wasn't making fun of you! Honestly! She was making fun of Mr. Poggit."

"Is that what you thought? You are so _stupid_ , Rory Williams, you and your stupid… _face_!" She closed the window with a slam and retreated to the safety of her duvet. She screwed up her eyes and tried not to cry. He was so thick. Of _course_ Mels was making fun of her. Mels made fun of everyone. He didn't understand girls. It was different with girls: the only thing worse than an enemy was a friend.

A few minutes later, she heard a thump and a crash coming from downstairs. Leaping from her bed, Amelia scurried to go see what it was. (One time a faerie had broken into the cellar. It had been trying to steal a tin of beans. She'd fought it off with a frying pan.)

She slid past the living room, the combination of socks on the polished wood floor making her even clumsier than usual. She had to grab the doorframe and pull herself back.

There was a tangle of boy on the floor in front of the window. Heaven knew how he'd managed to get it open, let alone climb in, but the fact was that he had. Rory Williams had just broken into her house.

Amelia stood over him as he tried to get himself free of the long white curtain. It was a comical display; every move he made seemed to make things worse. At last, Amelia gave up on superiority and bent down to help him.

"What are you doing?" she demanded as she slid the curtain out from under his arm.

He avoided looking her in the eyes. "I wanted to explain…"

"So you broke in? I could phone the police, you know."

Fear flashed across Rory's face. "Don't! My mum'll kill me!"

She stood and folded her arms. "Give me one good reason."

"Amelia…" he begged. "I promise, Mels and I weren't making fun of you."

"I don't believe you."

He got to his feet and rubbed his elbow—he must have smashed it on something. Amelia glanced around the room and saw that one of the lamps had fallen over, and there were pieces of white glass on the the floor next to it.

"She thinks I'm mad," Amelia said, not daring to look up from the lamp. "Everyone else does."

"I don't."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Liar," she accused.

Rory stared at her, eyes wide and honest. Amelia locked her eyes on him, like she had with shifty Nick Greenlake. Rory blinked once, but he didn't flinch.

There was nothing on his shoulder, no flash of memory in his eyes, no grimacing beastie, or shame, or glimmering and tantalising view of things to come. He was simply Rory.

"Okay," she said at last, grudgingly. She couldn't argue with facts when they were standing in front of her. Rory Williams was the genuine article.


	2. Chapter 2

Amelia had grown up, since there'd been little other choice. There was no escaping the perceptions of others. As she got older, she'd decided that she felt sorry for them, not because she was better than they were, that certainly wasn't true. But in their blindness, they stumbled and made fools of themselves, or worse, they were boring. Amelia couldn't abide boredom.

She started to go by Amy. Amy was willowy, not gawky, and yes, she was still a bit doolally, but she was In Treatment, at least as far as anyone else knew. People stopped being openly hostile when she stopped trying to tell them their own secrets. But no one would have trusted a Sane Amy Pond, so she cultivated eccentricities that people could accept.

It started with tarot cards. Amy had bought the old deck as a joke, a bit of fun. It wasn't as if she knew how to use them at all. Cards were a charlatan's prop. But then… Well, it stopped being fun when the people in the cards started to move. Amy would see the face of the person she was reading in the King of Wands, and those things that she'd always seen hanging over people's shoulders, or in their eyes, they started to play out on card-stock. And she saw more in the cards than she'd ever seen before without them. More than flashes of insight, but complex interconnections and relationships… She wouldn't let Rory or Mels touch the cards, which was fine in Mels' case, because she never asked for a reading, said it was moronic superstition. Rory asked a few times, and sulked when Amy refused, until he saw how scared she was.

She was sixteen when she started; by the time she was seventeen, it wasn't something she did occasionally for things like the village fete anymore. People started to seek her out. It was uncanny, they said, how accurate she was about things. As if they didn't remember Mrs. Poggit, or Amelia's insistence, back when she'd been eight, that it had been faeries had stolen little Benjamin Wallace. They all assumed that it had been that unsettling young man that had come through the town at the time. He'd gone to prison, and Ben had never been found, except by Amy, who had seen him dancing out in the woods behind her house one night. He'd looked just like all the other faeries, grey and fiercely ugly.

It took her some practice to learn what to tell people, and what to leave out. She found it helped her to read the battered little booklet that explained what all the cards were supposed to mean. That way, if what she saw was too terrible, or too close, she could simply tell them what the cards said and send them on their way. She started to make money, too.

Rory bought her a big book on astrology for her seventeenth birthday. He'd seen a fortune teller who did palm-reading and horoscopes as well as cards. She'd been annoyed at first—the last thing she needed was another source of information—but people wanted to know about their signs and all that. So she learned how to make charts and what a trine was and started to pick up a few extra pounds drawing charts and love predictions for people. She never did her own horoscope. Whatever she read about her sign seemed completely wrong, and her chart was incomprehensible.

She'd thanked Rory for the book by buying him a new pair of EarPods.

§

On the first of February, Amy was at home. Aunt Sharon had gone out on a date with Bill from the little chemist's. Amy didn't tell her that Bill was deeply closeted, because there wasn't any point. Her aunt would never believe her and besides, she'd figure it out quickly enough. Mels was in the cells overnight for vandalism. (Amy had decided to wait until morning to pay the bail. Maybe Mels would learn a lesson this time.) Rory was in London with a couple other boys from the village. Amy had been invited by Rory, but uninvited by Jeff. She was hurt, it always hurt to be cut off from the group, but she'd had so much practice that it barely registered anymore. Besides, it was a lads' night, and girls weren't wanted on lads' nights.

Hungry and alone, Amy made a fry-up and watched a few programmes on the old and decrepit television in the living room. Rory joked that on a clear day, you could still get the BBC. Amy didn't give much thought to technology. EarPods gave her a headache, so she got the download direct to her mobile… which spent most of its time on the charger. The higher the technology, the less comfortable she was. Rory was going to study computers at university, soon as he finished his A-levels. The idea of Rory knee-deep in metal made Amy nauseous.

However, she did like television. It was straightforward: no spectres hiding in the wings, or extra voices whispering. Plus, there was very little that she liked more than a good story. 

She had been watching a soap opera from Czechoslovenia when suddenly the news had cut in. Amy sat up and pulled her thick white cardigan closer around her, drawn in by the carefully controlled fear on the newsreader's face. Information came in a blur. EarPod malfunction, people across London leaving their homes and walking towards Battersea Power Station. Horrible reports. People were dying.

Amy sat there, frozen. What little footage was on the screen was enough to disturb her, but her mind's eye was filled with silver limbs and the sound of stomping metal boots. Screams. The newsreader urged all citizens to remove their EarPods. The EarPods were controlling people. _The EarPods_.

Rory.

She hurtled up the stairs and yanked her mobile off the charger (the wire flew from the wall socket and clattered on the floor) and she dialled. _Please pick up. Please._

_Cybermen_. The word flew around her mind in a voice that wasn't her own, but nearly as familiar. Rory wasn't answering. He was wearing the EarPods, they were controlling him, he was going to die. 

She made it to Aunt Sharon's small green car, her breathing ragged. She fumbled and dropped the car keys. She was hours from London. Her aunt would be furious that she'd taken the car. She didn't care. Rory was in London. He was in danger. The pictures in her head wouldn't stop, the sounds kept getting louder. Amy screamed, crying as her body folded into a messy heap on the drive, her skirt bunching up and icy cold stones tearing fresh runs in her tights.

She woke up in her own bed. Someone had taken her boots off, but she was still dressed under the covers. The blue walls of her bedroom were bright with morning sunshine. She glanced to the right, through the corner of her eye, to find the touchstone, that long, thin crack in the paint just above her dressing table, like a crooked smile.

Her heart stuttered; it was never a relief to see the crack. She dreamed that someday it would be gone and that would be the day that everything changed. Even so, it was a Fact, one of those things that only she saw. It had been the first thing that she'd discovered was hers alone. It had been here the day she'd moved in; it had whispered to her, frightened her. Before they'd come to Leadworth, before the loss of her mum and dad, Amelia Pond had probably been a normal girl.

Her bedroom door opened without a knock. Amy sat up quickly, pulling the covers over herself. It would be Aunt Sharon to tell her off about something—she never knocked when she was cross.

In the split second it took for the door to go wide, memories of the previous night rushed back.

Rory walked in on tip-toe. When he saw that she was awake, he stared and his mouth opened. Before he could speak, Amy leapt from the bed and threw her arms around his neck.

"Amy!" he cried, surprised. But his arms closed around her in a tight embrace.

"I thought you'd died!" She kissed him on the cheek five or six times. She was crying and laughing, mostly crying. It had been so clear last night. He'd died, everyone had died. Something had happened. Something had changed.

"No, actually," he began, probably staring stupidly over her shoulder as he tried to keep her balanced. "Did you watch the news?"

She nodded. "I _saw_ it, I saw the whole thing. You were supposed to die! Everyone was supposed to die." She pulled back to gauge his reaction. His mouth was open.

"Supposed to…?" He began. "What did you see?"

Amy sobbed and buried her face against his neck.

"It's okay, Amy… It's all right now." He rubbed her back and directed her to sit, and sat next to her, calm and steady and uncomplicated. She held his hand and refused to let go, even when he offered her a tissue from her bedside table. She clutched his sleeve and continued to cry, overwhelmed with relief. Something _had_ changed. She'd never been more thankful in her life. Rory held the tissue so that she could blow her nose and then he pulled her hair out of her eyes.

Slowly, he told her what had happened. Him and Jeff and Danny had been wandering about, not doing anything, really, when suddenly, their EarPods had activated. At least, that's what must have happened, because the next thing they'd known, they'd been in the middle of what looked like a factory. The world had been screaming. There were people everywhere, coming to their senses and trying to flee the nightmare scene. Men, metal men, were clutching their heads and letting out cries of agony, exploding. It was exactly as Amy had seen it, down to the Cybus imprint on the metal chests.

"What stopped it?" she asked. They were lying across her bed now. They'd done that before, a hundred times, but this was different. More intimate. Maybe because their sides were pressed up against each other, but Amy knew it was more than that. She _felt_ different.

Rory stared up at the ceiling with its glow-in-the-dark star stickers set to mimic fine art, and his face was… older. He was shaken. Amy turned and slowly, tentatively, put her head on his chest.

"I have no idea," he admitted. His arm snaked behind her and curled into place, hand on her shoulder. She bit down on the edge of her apple red thumbnail and watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "I barely got out of there. Danny and… We couldn't find Jeff."

Jeff was dead. She knew it without having to think or wonder but she didn't say it aloud.

"It was hard to get out of the city, but we drove all night to get here. We went to Mrs. Di Angelo's, I dropped Danny off at his house, stopped at home just to let Mum know I was all right, and then I came here. It was morning already. I saw your aunt's car in the drive, so I figured you were both home, but no one answered the door or the phone… And then I saw you lying on the ground." His eyes asked the questions.

"I was going for a drive," she said. "Everything went all… wibbly."

"You fainted."

She curled her arms up against her chest and pressed her head into him. "Don't be stupid."

Rory sat up and looked down at her. She felt the empty space in front of her like a cold breeze.

"You were having an episode, and you were going to drive?"

Amy scowled. "It wasn't an _episode_. I'm not some waif. I don't have _fits_ or _episodes_."

"Amy…" He looked genuinely worried, so she didn't shout at him, even though she wanted to.

"You were dying," she said, growling instead. "I had to…" She dropped her gaze to the white duvet.

Rory stared at her. "Oh."

She forced herself to look up. "Oh what?"

He flushed and it was his turn to look away. "Nothing. It's stupid."

"You're stupid," she said, and she grabbed his face and she kissed him.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the best time of Amy's life, those three years that the Earth spent fighting the Cybermen. Five million people died. Global warming was on the rise—ice caps were melting, and everyone said the world was going to end, that this was the price for the easy life that John Lumic had promised, but Amy was happy.

In so far as she was able to focus on one singular thing. The world _was_ falling apart. She could see cracks and holes everywhere these days, not just in her bedroom wall. The world was cracking. The dark was coming; the dark heralded the oncoming storm that would follow. She saw it everywhere. The news, the corner shop, the laundrette. Faeries didn't come to steal socks anymore; they were too afraid of the other things lurking there.

Rory kept the lurking things at bay, figuratively and literally. When she was with him, it was easier to ignore the signs all around them, and the lurkers didn't want anything to do with him.

Mels left Leadworth in a whirlwind one warm May afternoon, or more specifically, in a red convertible that she'd stolen in Gloucester. She'd stopped to show off and say good-bye to Amy and Rory, though, grinning her untameable grin and tossing her long black braids over her shoulder. The two of them had been walking down the side of the shady lane, on their way to the swings near the ruins. (Amy still loved the sensation of flying she got when Rory pushed her.)

"I can't believe you _stole a car_ ," Rory said, staring enviously at the cherry-red chassis.

"You should have said," Mels purred, putting her arm over Rory's shoulder and looking the car over. "I could have got one for you, too."

"Melody." Amy had had her arms crossed since the moment she'd seen the car screaming up the road. She'd known it would be Mels before it screeched to a halt in front of them. "This is too much. Even for you."

Mels rolled her eyes and laughed. "Oh, come on! It's just a bit of fun!"

"It's stealing," Rory pointed out.

"Which is fun!" She punched him playfully on the arm and he winced.

In the distance, police sirens started to come closer.

Mels jumped back into the driver's seat. "I'll give you a ring next time I'm in the neighbourhood."

"You can't just go on the run!" Amy protested. She threw her arms wide. "How are you supposed to live?"

"By my wits."

"That's not a serious answer!"

Mels snorted. "When have you ever known me to be serious?" 

"I can see them…" Rory was looking down the road. "You'd probably better get going now."

Amy hit him where Mels had hit him. He hissed and rubbed his arm. She leaned on the car door. "Don't do this," she warned. "Trust me, you don't want to do this." She didn't see much—she rarely did with Mels—but she couldn't shake the foreboding. Her friend was pointing down a path that ended only in pain, no matter what joy or thrills might lie in between. She could only see shadows ahead.

Mels raised an eyebrow. "Is that a prophecy, Cassandra?"

Amy pulled back and crossed her arms again. "Fine."

Mels' smile was gone now, but she didn't hesitate to put the car into gear. Eyes forward, she hit the accelerator and she was gone. Amy didn't watch the taillights. 

The police were getting closer. Amy grabbed Rory's hand and pulled him along behind her. "C'mon, run!"

§

Some time after Cybus industries was demolished, and its stranglehold on the world's media was loosened and cast away, there was a great resurgence of what people called Old School Media. Newspapers and magazines branched off from the behemoth. The _London Times, The Washington National_ , and _The Daily Mirror_ regained autonomy that they hadn't had since the early eighties. The BBC was reinstated by the new People's Republic of Great Britain and given back their studios and the rights they had lost to their old programming. The Web practically exploded with activity, new sites and services cropping up everyday, where before absolutely _everything_ had somehow managed to be under the umbrella of Cybus. People didn't have to all do the same thing anymore. People could think for themselves, and they could choose where to get their information from. It was freedom that hadn't been seen since Lumic had started to buy the world with his tech. Local newspapers like the _Leadworth Chronicle_ were going to flourish in the new age.

All of this was explained to Amy by Rory after she was was approached to write the astrology column for the _Chronicle_. 

"People swear by you, you know," said Mr. Linklater, the new editor, when he offered her the job. "My wife's come to see you a few times, I think."

Amy nodded. "Yes, I think so." More than a few. Mrs. Linklater had a gambling problem. She had lost thousands of pounds. Amy hadn't wanted to encourage the addiction, but she couldn't bear the thought of the Linklaters' four children suffering because of their mother's problem, so she threw out the occasionally lucky number, just to keep the vultures away. Odds were she'd have got lucky on her own sometimes anyway.

"The daily forecasts used to come from a single source in the morning download, of course," Linklater told her. They were sitting in his cosy office, drinking tea. It was Amy's first ever job interview, except for the five line conversation that had preceded that astonishingly short stint she'd done as a cashier in the sweet shop. (The owner had had an extra eye in his mouth.) "Now that we've got proper control of our content, I thought it'd be a good thing to have some local voices. As far as this column's concerned, I was thinking we'd start with a simple format. Basic daily for each sign on weekdays and Saturdays. Sundays could be a general overview for the coming week, lucky numbers, that sort of thing. Does that sound all right to you, Amy?"

She liked the idea of making something that people would read, maybe even believe, even if was just for fun. "It sounds great," she replied, and hid her surprise when she saw a little blue man crawl over Linklater's shoulder and unscrew the cap on his old-fashioned fountain pen. She laughed nervously and smiled. Mr. Linklater _shook her hand_ like she was a grown-up and she went straight home to put together the next day's forecast.

Most days, she put out the same generalised predictions as any other news psychic—about as accurate as a chicken scratching warnings into the earth. But sometimes, genuine 'inspiration' hit.

_Aries: A well-oiled machine is a happy machine. Better get that old engine checked over if you're planning any travelling, or disaster will follow._

A few days later, she heard Arnold Vickerson, the man who ran the Mr. Whippy ice cream van, talking to his wife. "I'd have been killed! Brakes completely shot!"

"You do drive too fast, Arnie."

"That's not the point! I'm telling you, it's like it was written specifically for me."

The woman chuckled. "Sure it was, love."

Amy smiled and kept walking.

§

One day in late June of 2010, more than a year after Mels had left (no word from her at all since then) Amy came across something on her kitchen table.

It _looked_ like a box. Just an ordinary little box, covered in red velvet, sitting right in the centre of the table.

"Aunt Sharon!" She leaned into the corridor, then the living room, checking everywhere, but Sharon was nowhere to be found. She was working in Gloucester now, plenty of people did. She must not have come home yet.

Amy approached the table with caution, sidling up one step at a time. The air over the table shimmered with possibilities.

Too terrified to even think of touching the little red box, Amy fixated on the bit of paper below it. It was newsprint, like the stuff she remembered from childhood. It must have been from at least that far back, because it smelled of age. It was almost heavy with it.

It was a page out of the Leadworth Chronicle, dated March, 1996. Amy frowned at the curling corners and its fading ink. That was the month she'd first moved here. The cutting was of one of the old horoscopes. Somebody had circled Cancer.

_A good day for Crabs! If you're single, keep a wary eye out for new love. If you're in a relationship, get ready to turn up the heat. Time to take things to the next level!_

Amy laughed quietly at the clichés, but the larger significance wasn't lost on her. Rory's birthday was in June; last week, as a matter of fact. They'd had a very nice picnic—Amy loved picnics—with wine and they'd got drunk and a little bit frisky out in the field.

She looked at the little red box out of the corner of her eye. _Time to take things to the next level._

Amy put the horoscopes back under the box, careful to put it all back exactly as she'd found it, and then she went to hide in her bedroom.

She sat on her bed and stared at the crack in the wall. The voices were clear as crystal today. _The storm is coming._

"Amy?" Rory came quietly into the room and sat next to her on the bed. "I knocked."

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Sorry. Yeah." She looked at him, gorgeous Rory, _her_ gorgeous Rory, and the voices in the wall grew quiet, until it was only silence.

"You're crying," he said, dismayed. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," she said with a forced laugh. "I really don't."

"Am I still making you supper?"

Amy touched his cheek. There was so much there, in that stupid face. The curve of his eyebrows, the magnificent slopes of his nose, the parentheses that framed his smiles. 

"Or… not…" he said. He threaded his fingers through her hair, mirroring her position. "We don't have to eat now."

"The stars are going out," she murmured.

A wince crossed his face. One of Amy's old nightmares was coming true. A few more stars winked out every night, unnoticed by anyone except astronomers, and Amy. And Rory, once he took his father's old telescope out to the field with her and found that Andromeda was missing an arm. Eventually, everything would be gone, and the Earth would hang alone in the blackness. Soon, everyone would see it and three years of living in fear of the Cybermen would be forgotten in face of the advancing night.

"I read somewhere that it's a result of some kind of stellar dust cloud," he began, but she shook her head and he gave up reasoned argument. "It'll be all right," he said.

"How?" she asked. _Take it to the next level_. There wasn't going to _be_ a next level. There wasn't going to be anything at all. The encroaching dark, herald of the oncoming storm. What would be left to weather any storm?

"I don't know," he said. "But it will be."

He kissed her and they made love well into the night. In the morning, she made breakfast. The little red box wasn't on the table anymore. Rory must have taken it back when he'd realised that it wasn't a good time. (Maybe he hadn't intended for her to see it at all.) But it would never be a good time, because time was running out, slipping through the holes in the universe like water through an old wooden bucket. Amy ate her baked beans and bacon and kissed him goodbye when he left for work.

The storm was coming.

Out in the garden, Amy sat on the swing set, listing back and forth with the wind as the heels of her boots wore holes in the ground. It should have been a beautiful day. The sun was high, the air was warm, too warm for England, but the clouds were thick and dark. Thunderheads germinating in the thick late-spring air.

It wasn't the first time that she had tried to remember the raggedy man, with tatters in his jacket, and running, always running. Through the garden, through the trees. And an apple. There was always an apple, bright red like Mels' stolen car. It was all more like a dream than anything else, but it was real. She'd always felt that with utter certainty. Maybe it had never happened, perhaps she _had_ dreamed it up, but that didn't mean that it wasn't real.

Amy didn't steal a car—she was only taking it to the train station, and she left a note for Mrs. Di Angelo telling her where it would be. The train would take her far away, away from Rory, away from Aunt Sharon and the Chronicle, away from all the people who thought her strange proclivities were charming, really not that harmful after all. They'd probably chalk it all up to her being Mad Amelia Pond, and talk and shake their heads. Mr. Linklater would have to work with the last week's worth of predictions she'd left in his inbox with her letter of resignation. 

Rory would come after her. He would worry. She didn't want him to do that. So she left him a note, too, _Goodbye_ , and she ran away.

Amy's first inclination was to go back to Scotland. Back to where she'd had a proper family and the games she'd played and the stories she'd told had been good and no one thought that there was something wrong with her.

However, there was something on the train to Inverness. It was a man who wasn't a man at all, but a red fish person with sharp teeth and cruel, beady eyes. He wasn't _doing_ anything. He was just sitting in a compartment, reading off a tablet. She stopped and stared through the window, which caught the fish man's attention. He seemed as surprised by her as she was by him. Amy didn't perceive any particular malice from Fish Head, but she got off the train anyway.

It cost most of the money that she had on her to buy a new ticket to London. She was glad that she'd saved as much as she had over the last few years. It wouldn't be nearly enough to get a flat or anything, but she could use her credit account to find a hotel for a few days as she planned her next move.

Unfortunately, she was completely at a loss. She'd liked the idea of safe and cosy Scotland. Leadworth was safe and cosy for other people, maybe. She was well shot of bogeyman and gnomes and gremlins and faeries and shades. (Though it was possible that Scotland would have had all those things and brownies.)

All the way to London, Amy held her mobile. She'd turned the sound off. Rory had sent her his usual midday bored-at-work text messages. He wouldn't know that she was gone yet. She still had time to get back. Nothing was permanent yet. She could go back to Leadworth. Rory would propose and they could get married and wait for the end together.

The sticking point stuck her right in the heart and lodged itself there. She watched the screen light time after time, watched texts become phone calls. She watched Rory's name appear and reappear, but she never answered, never let herself press the button to accept the call.

The train was old and filthy—anyone with any sort of money travelled by zeppelin—but the train had a dining car, and she wasn't certain that zeppelins did. She'd never been on one, as much as she'd always wanted to.

Amy dragged her small suitcase behind her. (Her two larger ones were stowed in luggage.) The dining car smelt of cabbage and stale fat, but the food was surprisingly edible. It was better than Aunt Sharon's cooking, at least. Amy had done most of the cooking in the house since she'd been ten.

She collapsed back into her compartment a little while later, her hair coming out of its disheveled bun and getting into her face just in time to fly up when she let out a sigh.

Her mobile started to vibrate in her pocket. She looked at the name. To her surprise, it was Aunt Sharon. She turned the phone off and stuffed it into her jacket pocket to avoid the pulse of guilt that had piggybacked onto her heartbeat. Fighting the urge to call Rory, Amy leaned her head against the window and stared out at the passing scenery.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a scorching day in late August when Amy lost her second job. Desperate to make the rent on her tiny room, Amy went down to the park. She had a pair of tiny folding stools and a table that she covered with her prettiest blue scarf. She put a miniature crystal ball in the centre of the table in an attempt to create an atmosphere.

She had a grand total of two customers at two quid each before the police showed up. At least one of them was a woman this time. (Usually the coppers who came to tell her to move along were men.) The lady copper was young, probably only a few years older than Amy was, brown-skinned, and her name tag said JONES. Her partner was named Turner, and he looked very average and very bored.

"Have you got a permit?" Jones asked. She was firm, but not unkind.

Amy fumbled at her pockets. "Um… No… Looks like I left it at home. I could go and get it…"

Constable Jones shook her head and started to pull out her citation tablet.

"No!" Amy cried, leaping to her feet. She bumped the table with her knee. Jones' eyes widened slightly. Her partner's hand was twitching towards his weapon. Amy held up her own hands. "Sorry, didn't mean to shout… It's just… I've got rent due at the end of the week, and I've got to make some sort of money, and this is all I know how to do… Well, I know some other things, but you'd only arrest me for that." Her eyes widened. That had probably come out wrong. "Not that I've ever considered prostitution! Never ever. I lost my job and I've been ill and I've got to do something or I'll be out on the street."

Turner frowned. "That's what everyone says. Pack it up and move along."

"I'll give you a free reading!" Amy blurted.

Jones raised an eyebrow. "Just so you know, that could be constituted as bribing a public official."

Panicking, Amy grabbed her tarot deck, got between them and the table, and thrust the cards out towards them in a fan. "Not a bribe. Just a… Maybe you could tell me how to get a permit? Please? I'm good, I'm _really_ good."

Jones did not look amused, but Turner shrugged. "Yeah, why not?" He pulled a card from the middle and looked at it. "Now what?"

"Show it to me."

He held up Nine of Coins. Amy relaxed a little. "That's a good one." The man in the picture wasn't Constable Turner, but he looked a bit like him. "Someone you know has quite a lot of money. A relative. Your father or maybe an uncle." Doubt showed on the constable's face. "Maybe he's not rich now, but he will be. He's been working very hard all his life, he's made sacrifices, for you, for your family. It's going to pay off."

Turner peered curiously at the card. "Yeah? So? That's pretty general, innit?"

Not convincing enough. Most of the time she'd just tell a person to pick a second and third card. Instead, Amy looked into his face, observed his clothing, the rank insignia, the scuffs on his shoes, the wrinkles in the little snap-strap that held his handgun in place. And then she could smell the powder on his fingers, see blood spattered on his neck and cheek, marring the white collar of his uniform. She glanced up at the brim of his hat and her eyes were drawn by red to a hole at his temple.

Amy gasped and backed up, upsetting her stool and the table. Both constables started. Jones had one hand on her radio, but Turner already had his gun halfway out.

"You were scared," she said, rambling to keep the image of the young man with that same gun pointed ahead from overtaking her. "How could you know?" Someone was shouting, a boy, a teenager, no more than fifteen years old. He had a baggy jacket. He was alone, but skulking, looking around like he was waiting for someone. It was past curfew. He'd have to be brought in. He wouldn't answer questions. He was reaching into his jacket. It was a gun, he was sure. There was blood, so much blood.

"You didn't mean to," Amy continued, "you really didn't, but you didn't see in time." She was shaking, and tears were running down her face as she talked. "You'd never killed anyone before. Just a kid, just a stupid kid."

Turner was as white as a sheet. His gun was out now, and it was pointed at Amy.

"Constable Turner!" Jones' voice was sharp and loud, like a shrill hammer. "Disarm! _Now_!"

"What's she doing?" he cried. He was terrified. "What is she talking about?What kind of game is she playing? Is that supposed to be _funny_?"

"Don't be an idiot, Phil. Put the bloody gun away! She's unarmed."

Amy's head was spinning. He killed someone. She'd never met anyone, no human being anyway, who'd done that before. But he hadn't, not yet. But he would. And then he'd shoot himself. _So much blood_.

She found herself on the ground, looking up at the sky, and then at Constable Jones' face. Her brown eyes were wide and worried as she spoke into her radio. "I need an ambulance to Thatcher Park, by the eastern entrance. Caucasian, female, early twenties. She's having some kind of seizure."

Amy lost track of the world for a while after that. She woke up in hospital, in a long ward of curtains, with a drip in her arm and a plastic barcode around her wrist. Her name was printed under the bars, so they must have found her identification.

A nurse came in and checked the drip.

"What is that?" Amy asked. She didn't want drugs.

"Saline. Good thing you're up. I was going to have to put a feeding tube in you if you didn't wake soon."

"How long have I been here?"

The nurse went about her business, looking at monitors and such. "They brought you in this afternoon. When was the last time you ate?" She spoke in a no-nonsense fashion, no real concern in her voice, no eye-contact.

"I dunno. This morning?"

"What was it?"

"A bit of toast," she murmured. "Why am I here? Where is here? You can't make me stay!"

"You were dangerously dehydrated when they brought you in. The police constable said you had a seizure." The nurse glanced at her for a moment, a crease over her nose that was only curiosity, then she glanced at the tablet that held the medical chart. "Your medical records don't show any history of epilepsy. Are you taking your medication?"

Amy shook her head. "No."

The nurse pursed her lips and silently judged her. "The doctor will be in to see you within the next half hour. Sit back, relax. An orderly will bring you something to eat soon. Do you require a vegetarian, vegan, kosher, a halal meal?"

"No."

"Good. We're out of vegan and halal." She gave Amy a small smile and then she pulled the curtain aside with a twitch of her wrist and left.

Amy sat in the hospital bed and wondered where they had put her clothes and her other things. She'd been sick too long. _Dehydrated_. Who fainted because of that? What rubbish.

The next person through the curtain was not a doctor. Amy's heart sank and she tried to burrow into the mattress when she recognised Constable Jones. (She wasn't wearing her hat.)

"How are you feeling?" Jones asked her.

"Complicated," Amy replied shortly, coming out from behind the sheet. "Are you here to arrest me, then?"

Jones shook her head. "No, I just thought I'd come back to see how you were doing."

Come back? "Why?"

The other woman raised an eyebrow. "I wanted to know if you were okay." Her gaze floated to the foot of the bed, where the tablet sat in its plastic box. Amy could read the curiosity on her face like it was a large-print children's book.

"You can look at it, if you like," she said wearily. "You might as well know. I'm insane." The sarcasm grew stronger as she talked, and she felt a little bit better. "All the doctors say so. And I'm off my medication. You can cite me for that as well as reading fortunes without a license."

Constable Jones didn't retreat in embarrassment or balk. She simply picked up the chart and flicked her way through it. Amy crossed her arms and waited. At last, Jones replaced the tablet, then she produced one of her own. Amy stared at the screen. Her reflection shadowed over another version of herself, one that was smiling and healthy and would have had an arm over Rory's shoulder if someone hadn't cropped it. She imagined him doing the cropping and felt wretched.

_Amelia Jessica Pond_ , it read below. _21, 5'11", Red Hair, Green Eyes. Often goes by the name "Amy". Born 3 April 1989. Disappeared from Leadworth 27 June, 2010. Any news of whereabouts, please contact Sharon Pond of 1100 Leadworth Grove, Leadworth…_

She stopped reading. "Are you going to call her?"

"That depends," Jones replied, "on why you're in London. You're too old to really be considered a runaway, but your medical history suggests that you'd do better under the protection of a family member…"

"You can understand all that?" Amy interrupted. "My medical history?"

"I went to train as a doctor. I didn't finish. Decided to do this instead."

Amy saw the faintest outline of a dead woman looking over Jones' shoulder. The shade was wearing EarPods. "You like it, then?"

"I like knowing that I'm helping people," she replied. "The question right now being, whether or not I'm helping you if I do my job and contact your family."

"Please don't."

"I need a reason, Amy." Jones was sympathetic, but she had rules and she didn't like to break them. They were her own rules though, Amy realised. She believed in the law, but not that it was infallible. Interesting.

"Because…" Amy faltered. She couldn't just make up some story, like her aunt had abused her or something. Neglected, sometimes, but never abused. "Because I can't go back. You don't know what it was like there. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't _live_. The world's falling apart, and I was _there_ , in the middle of all that nothing, and…"

"Why haven't you contacted your aunt, let her know you're okay?"

"Because she'd try to make me come back."

"She can't force you."

"You don't know her."

It wasn't Sharon who'd force her. No one would _force_ her. But Rory would ask, beg, plead even. She'd intentionally let her mobile get run over by a lorry just to stop the calls.

"I have to ask," Jones said after a few moments. "I'm sorry, but… Did you mean what you said… To my partner." She looked a little bit frightened.

"No," Amy lied. "No, I'm sorry. It must have been the seizure talking."

The constable was relieved, but Amy could see a glimmer of doubt in her eyes. She knew it was real. She believed it, down there somewhere, even though she didn't want to. Amy was so dumbstruck that she barely noticed when the doctor walked in.

"Am I interrupting, Constable?"

Jones shook her head. "No." She turned back to Amy. "I'll be back to check on you tomorrow. Thank you, Doctor."

Amy wished she wouldn't but she nodded.

The doctor's name tag said his name was Irving Darling. Amy bit her lips to stifle a laugh. "I'm Dr. Darling," he said, extending his hand. Amy shook it and smiled. "Well, first off, all your tests look fine, aside from the dehydration and low blood sugars. I think we can rule out epilepsy as a cause for your attack today. Tox screen was clean. Do you drink?" 

She shook her head. "Not much lately."

"Do you smoke?"

"No."

He smiled warmly. "That's good. I have some news for you, Ms. Pond."

When Constable Jones came back, if she came back, Amy was already gone. She didn't come looking, though, and Aunt Sharon never showed up at the door of Amy's flat, so she must not have told on her, either. Amy hoped that Jones had forgotten all about her.


	5. Chapter 5

She was in Tesco one evening, buying milk and vitamins to the soundtrack of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" when she heard a familiar voice say her name.

Amy turned her head and stared.

"You always pull the bottle from the back," said Mels, head cocked to one side. "Why _is_ that?"

"The ones at the back are fresh," Amy replied, defensively. "They stock them from the ba— What are you _doing here_?"

Mels grinned. "I could ask you the same thing."

"I live here."

"Rory makes you do the shopping? I could have sworn it'd be the other way round."

Amy glanced down at the milk bottle in her hands. Her fingers were starting to hurt from the cold. She set it down in the basket. "Rory's not here."

Mels frowned at her. "He isn't? Why not?" Amy felt her friend's eyes running up and down her. She came closer, peering in the shopping basket and then rudely pulled aside the wide flap of Amy's open coat. For the first time in her life, Melody Zucker looked completely gobsmacked. "Oh my God."

Amy hissed and slapped Mels' hand and quickly closed her coat. "Oi! _Rude_! Stop that!"

Mels' face was strangely serious. Amy's stomach churned. Or growled. God, was she hungry _again_?

"You're _pregnant_ ," Mels said. She narrowed her eyes. "Who's the father?"

Amy looked around for an escape route and spoke between her teeth. "Shut up, shut _up_!"

"It's Rory's, isn't it? Oh my God. Isn't it?"

"Of course it's…!" Amy grit her teeth. "Shut up, we're in the _dairy aisle_."

"You've got _prenatal vitamins_." Mels frowned thoughtfully at the bottle of milk. "You can't drink that." 

"What's wrong with it? It's milk."

Mels plucked a different bottle from the rack—this one was organic and nearly twice the price—and deposited the other one carelessly in its place. "Come on, Pond. We've got a _lot_ to talk about."

§

" _You haven't told him_?"

Amy crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. The booth was only barely big enough for her in all her sixth-month-glory. "If I were going to call anybody, I would have done it by now."

"All right… But he'd want to be a part of this." Mels gestured to Amy's belly like it was a large plot of land. 

"I know."

"So tell him!"

"I can't."

Melody crossed her arms in a perfect mirror of Amy's defensive posture, except she managed to give it a sort of vibe and flair that Amy knew she'd never match in a million years. "All right. Tell me why."

"You know how the stars are going out?"

The other woman's brow crumpled. "Yeah…"

"It's not some space dust cloud or shadow. The stars are being extinguished. Whole galaxies are being wiped from the universe."

"How do you know that?"

Amy fixed her friend with a stoic stare. Mels held up her hands. "Okay. Say you're right. Just for the sake of argument. What does that have to do with Rory not getting to know that he's going to be a father?"

"He was going to propose," Amy blurted. "Rory was. To me."

Mels shook her head and snorted. "Yeah, of course he was."

"What do you mean 'of course he was'?"

She laughed loudly enough that half the people in the cafe turned to look at them. "Oh, come _on_! He's been in love with you since we were nine. Maybe before then."

Amy looked down at her tea. Which was getting cold. "No, he hasn't."

"You were the one who had to think he was dead before you realised how you felt about him," Mels pointed out. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying. You two are…" She shrugged. "Made for each other, I suppose. Williams and Pond. Match made in heaven."

"It's not because I don't love him," Amy protested.

"I never said you didn't."

"The world is ending. I can't… Everything is going to disappear, all the stars, all the galaxies, everything that ever was or ever will be. I can't be there when that happens."

After a moment of careful silence, Mels nodded. "I see. You don't want to watch him disappear, so you figure you'll disappear instead. Break his heart so he can't break yours."

Amy stared at her. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Mels leaned across the table. "Here's what I do know, Amy. When that baby comes, you're not going to want to be alone. You're going to want someone with you. And it should be him."

"Maybe," Amy said grudgingly. The wrinkled grey thing in the black crumpled suit turned its head and watched them. Amy blinked and forgot that she'd seen him there.

§

Spring wasn't due yet, and neither was she. Amy tried to grit her teeth through the contraction and when it was over, she picked her mobile off of the bedside table and dialled again. "Come _on_ , where are you? You promised you'd be here!" Labour was _supposed_ to take longer than this, or so she'd thought. Six hours ago she'd felt queasy and a little bit odd. Next thing she knew, her waters had broken and she was here. And her best friend— _former best friend_ —was not.

Dr. Hussain smiled up at her from between her knees. "Looks like we're in business."

"I'm still waiting for someone," Amy told her.

The obstetrician smiled behind her light blue paper mask. "You might be, but this baby certainly isn't. You're fully dilated."

"No. No, I'm not ready." Another contraction ripped through her, worse than any of the rest of them and she screamed. She hated her body, she hated her uterus, she hated Rory, and she especially hated Melody bloody Zucker.

"Here we go!" Dr. Hussain said cheerfully. "All right, Amy, I need you to push with each contraction. Ready?"

Amy was nearly sobbing. "No! Please, no, I can't do this by myself. She said she'd be here!" Another wave started. Amy screamed and she pushed. It seemed to go on forever. When was this going to be over?

A nurse took hold of her hand. Amy had refused her offer before, but to hell with pride now. "You're doing brilliantly!"

"I can see the head. Keep going, Amy. Push!"

It was a blur after that, until Amy heard the baby crying. She was crying, too, but they were joyful tears now. She felt her daughter's weight on her stomach, only for a few moments while they suctioned the baby's nostrils, then they took her away to clean her and weigh her. Amy didn't pay any mind to what the nurse was saying to her, or all the other business that seemed to still be going on between her legs. All her attention was on the tiny red thing across the room, kicking and screaming. Every second ticked by in Amy's mind, each one a thousand times longer than it was allowed to be, until they handed the baby back to her, clean and swaddled in a pink blanket.

"Congratulations," Dr. Hussein said. She was beaming, and for a moment, Amy could almost see a golden halo around her head, but maybe that was exhaustion.

"Thank you."

"What a pretty girl," the kind nurse cooed. Amy laughed—she was too tired for words. She was a mother, a _mum_ , she had a daughter. It was wonderful and unbelievable and too terrifying to describe. She thought she'd known what it would feel like to hold her—she'd held other babies before, after all—but this was…

"You picked out any names yet?" Dr. Hussein asked. She had pulled off her dirty outer scrubs. "Because Thana's a _great_ name."

"I already have one," Amy said. Her little face was so small and her head was almost pointed. "Melody."

"Melody Pond." Dr. Hussein nodded in approval. "Very nice. Sounds like something out of a storybook."

Amy smiled and soon, a nurse was helping her settle into her first breastfeeding session. Before it was over, Amy had decided that Melody looked just like her father.

§

Amy slept fitfully, awakened by every closing door, every scuttle of slipper over linoleum. There were creatures all over the hospital. On her way to the nursery in the afternoon, she'd spotted half a dozen demons and gremlins hanging on to different people. Patients mostly. _Things_ that Amy knew were really just the diseases and maladies of the body and mind, but she saw them as coiling, clutching creatures, wrapping themselves around people's necks, or peeking out from beneath hospital and dressing gowns. One doctor had a pulsing pus-coloured thing that looked like an overgrown spiked leech sucking on his arm.

The very first time she'd been to a hospital—the one in Leadworth had been small and old—she had nearly run screaming from the building. Hangers-on on every patient, misery and pain. A nightmare. It had been the first time in her life that she'd wished that she was just as blind as everyone else and really _meant it_.

After her "fit" last summer she'd been in hospital for only the one day, and she'd managed to avoid seeing too many people. And to be quite honest, she'd been _slightly_ preoccupied with thoughts of Constable Turner's impending doom and her own growing problem.

Amy hated doctors. Hated everything about these places with their pain and their disease. In the nursery there'd been one baby… Not hers, thank God, no he was newer still than Melody. He'd been sleeping peacefully, but a small, thin, acid green whisper of a thing, like a snake made of smoke, had been curling around his blue beanie. She'd read the name and the room number off the tag on the cot and tried to think of how to tell the doctors that they needed to run more tests, to watch him.

A little after one in the morning, Amy snuck out of her room and down the corridor. Which was _disturbing_ at night, despite the fact that it wasn't dark, only dimly lit. Every sound echoed. Everything was wrong. It was like being at school after all the teachers had gone. There were some places that you simply did not want to be at night.

Of course, it wasn't really deserted. A night nurse stopped her. "You should be in bed, ma'am."

"I just wanted to see my baby," she said, trying to smile a little. "Please, just for a few minutes?"

The man's face softened. She checked him over. He didn't have anything hanging off of him, no disease, no addiction. He was a good man and he loved his job. "Of course," he said. "Just for a little while, though. You need your rest, too."

Amy thanked him. He walked with her to the nursery window.

"Room 1011?" he said. Amy nodded.

He smiled. "Congratulations."

Amy put the heels of her hands on the window and her fingers curled. "Can I go inside and hold her?" She glanced at his name tag. Andrew Dinh. "Andrew, right? Could I go in? Maybe I could feed her?"

Andrew glanced at his wristwatch. It was silver and it had hands. Only nurses wore watches like that. Tradition, she supposed. "It's not time for feeding yet… But all right." They went inside. There was another nurse inside, a middle-aged woman with a bit of gauze covering her right eye. Amy was pretty sure she'd seen her during the whole delivery… thing. Which had been at least eighteen hours ago.

"Good evening, Ms. Pond. Here to see your little one?"

"Yeah. Do you ever go home?"

The woman laughed. "I did! And then I came back. Now…" She was preparing formula bottles. "Let's get you set up with your Melody."

There was a room set aside specifically for nursing, with rocking chairs and cheerful wallpaper scenes of baby animals frolicking on it. Bunny rabbits and puppies and kittens and hedgehogs and mice. And a dopey-looking turtle that reminded her a little bit of Rory. Amy swallowed a rush of feelings and focused her attention on the newborn at her breast. The animals in the wallpaper played together in her peripheral vision, until the puppies and kittens realised that they were predators and started going after the rabbits and the mice. The hedgehogs rolled into balls and quaked with fear, but the stupid turtle just watched Amy feed her new daughter, a sad, lonely look on its face.

Sometimes, she suspected that she wasn't seeing the world around her, but the contents of her own head leaking out and painting her surroundings. _Those_ were the times she worried that she might actually be insane. But they passed.

Once Melody had finished drinking, Amy tried to burp her again—a strangely difficult thing to manage, for some reason—and once that was accomplished, she rocked the chair back and forth, until _she_ almost fell asleep.

The female nurse came back in to check on them. She went back and forth a lot. "How are we doing, then?"

"Good. I think she might need changing…"

The nurse nodded. "That'll happen. Tables right over there. Nappies are in the yellow box on the left, bin's on the right."

Once that horrible, _horrible_ mess was dealt with… Honestly. Horrible. Oh God, she was going to be a rubbish mother. One nappy, and she already wanted to vomit… Well. Melody was back in her cot in the big room with all the other newborns with their painfully new skin and their tiny fragile hands and their pointy heads under their beanies. Amy went back to the big viewing window. There was a man there, young and a little gawky and for one terrifying and wonderful moment, she thought it was Rory standing there. That he'd come and found her at last.

But it wasn't Rory. It was just some bloke. He was nervous and exhausted and full of twitchy turmoil and an exuberance that could only be newly minted fatherhood. His sandy hair was a mess, his plaid shirt was wrinkled and half-tucked, and his khaki-coloured jacket looked like it had been slept in.

"Which one's yours?" she asked him.

He stared at her for a second, she supposed he hadn't heard her approach, and then he grinned a huge, toothy grin and pointed. "Third from the right, second row from the top. A boy. We're calling him Nathaniel Alan, after her mum's dad and my dad." 

Amy looked at Nathaniel Alan's cot and the soft green smoke tendril that lay in a hoop all around him, like one of those old symbols of a snake biting its own tail.

"He's beautiful," she said. "Mine's in the middle row, fourth from the left. Her name's Melody. After a… a friend."

"That's very pretty," he said. Then, as if realising he had committed some infraction, he offered a hand to shake. "Name's Harry."

"Amy."

They shook hands. It was all very friendly and normal. Amy turned back to the window and weighed facts against social niceties.

"I hate to be _that person_ ," she began, smirking a little because as much as that was the complete truth, it wasn't something she could really avoid. "But I was reading this article a few months ago about all the… complications… Diseases and all that." She glanced at Harry the new dad, who looked back at her like he really wished she wouldn't finish her thought. "It was morbid, but I wanted to be prepared, you know? Well, anyway, I read that there are some things that can go wrong that doctors might not see. But if they're not caught right away…" She licked her lips and glanced at Nathaniel Alan. The smoke snake raised its head and looked straight back at her. "So I ordered half a dozen different scans for Melody," she lied in a puff. She laughed nervously, and so did Harry, more so. "Isn't that daft?"

"Yeah," he agreed, smiling with fear in his eyes. "Little bit. I mean, you can't believe everything you read in the feeds, can you?"

"Right." The snake narrowed its blood-red eyes. "But I don't care. If there's any chance something might be wrong, I've got to do everything I can, right?"

Harry stared at his sleeping baby, tight jaw and eyes, almost as if he suddenly saw the thing threatening him. Amy prayed that she hadn't gone too far, or worse, not far enough. _Please_ , please.

"Was it… like, a neurological thing?" he asked, completely failing to be casual. "In the article? Or some sort of…" He glanced over his shoulder and whispered, "Sudden… That syndrome…?"

Amy didn't blame him for not wanting to say it. A chill tap-danced down her spine and her eyes snapped to Melody without her even thinking about it. Breathing. No snakes, no demons. Only the grey man in the black suit watching the nurse with the eyepatch work. Amy frowned. What was that? She'd never seen anything like _that_ before. Except maybe on _The X-Files_. Or that Edvard Munch painting.

She turned back to Harry, and thought that if she got just _one person_ to believe her, she wanted it to be him, because she couldn't let Nathaniel Alan die. No way.

"There were a couple of things," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, I don't remember the names of them. Just that I couldn't pronounce them and that _terrified_ me." They laughed a little more, more out of awkward fear than anything else.

"Half a dozen scans, eh?"

She nodded. "Yep."

Harry nodded too, thoughtfully agreeing with her. "Better safe than sorry."

She watched Melody sleep until Andrew the nurse came back out to scold her. When Amy got back to her bed, she slept like a dream.


	6. Chapter 6

"Not that I've ever really put much stock in that sort of thing, mind."

Amy had nodded politely. 

"Still." The editor looked across the table at her. "I read the samples you sent, and I was impressed. I'll have a contract drawn up."

"Thank you!" Amy forced herself to put her hands back down at her sides. "You won't be sorry."

Smith nodded and looked back down at her tablet, tapped something into it. Then, raising her eyes and looking over her reading glasses, she said, "I have good instincts about people. You seem to be an intelligent young woman. But remember this is a probationary position…"

"Yes, of course."

"Very good." She held out her hand. "Welcome aboard, Ms. Pond."

Amy stood and shook the older woman's hand. "Thank you. Really. Thank you."

Smith smiled ever-so-slightly. "You're welcome. Now, I hate to rush you out, but I'm afraid that I really am quite busy…"

"Yes. Of course. Sorry." Amy backed her way out of the office. "I'll send that contract back soon as I can."

"You do that." Smith had already gone back to her work. Amy swallowed the last few phrases of ecstatic gratitude that were bubbling on her tongue and left the editor's office.

"How did it go?" Mels was sitting on the little couch in the little anteroom, bouncing her namesake on her knee. It was funny to see _Mels_ holding a baby, but she wasn't as awkward about it as Amy had expected her to be.

She played it cool. "Oh, you know. Standard interview stuff." She held out her arms and Melody looked up at her with wide blue eyes. Her hair was reddish-blonde and wispy. She looked just _adorable_ in her fuzzy white jumper, even if it did catch and hold onto every single solitary bit of food that came within a metre of it. It had been a present from her godmother, who had no inkling of the practical concerns of babies vis-a-vis mess.

Mels peered up at her. "Did you get it?" she insisted. She handed the eighteen-month-old over and dusted invisible crumbs from her black leather trousers. Amy was mindful as she could be not to let Melody dribble on her blouse. But then again, what did it matter now?

Amy tilted her head and addressed herself to her daughter in baby-voice. "Mummy got the job! _Yes, she did_!" Melody replied in incomprehensible, delightful syllables.

Mels got up and thrust the nursery bag at her. "I can't take you seriously when you talk like that."

Amy laughed. "Mummy doesn't care!" She hefted the bag onto her shoulder and then she tickled Melody's tummy until she wheezed and grinned back. "No. She. Doesn't!"

"Go on, Pond." Mels buffeted her arm lightly. "I'm _starving_. Let's get lunch or something."

"You're buying," Amy told her.

"Whatever."

"What did you think of her?" Mels asked hours later, after they had got back to the flat and Amy had put the baby down for her nap. 

"Who?" They'd been talking about some bloke that Mels had seduced in order to get out of Belarus a few seconds ago.

" _Smith_. Does she really do the interviews for _everyone_ who comes through herself?"

"Only if they get past the other ones. But I doubt she talks to the bloke who empties the bins."

"What was she like?"

Amy shrugged. "Fine."

Mels narrowed her eyes. She picked the bottle of wine she'd bought off of the counter and undid the cork with the tiny waiter's corkscrew from the drawer. Amy's kitchen only consisted of a couple of cupboards, an ancient fridge and the narrowest cooker known to man, but she had enough to make decent meals. Amy picked an apple from the bowl on the counter and used the edge of her thumbnail to draw a smiley face in the skin. She'd always done that. Old habit she'd picked up somewhere.

"Didn't you see anything?"

Amy frowned at her. "You never ask me that."

"What? Of course I do." She picked a couple of dusty wine glasses out of the cupboard, without even looking at them. Amy plucked them from her hand and rinsed them at the sink before handing them back.

"No, you don't. Besides, it doesn't matter, because I didn't."

"Nothing at all?" She poured and Amy took her glass. It had been ages since she'd had any wine, but Mels had insisted. They were celebrating, after all: Amy's new job, and Mels' own return to the Republic after her latest "time abroad." Though technically that had been a few weeks ago now. Mels had come to stay a week after Melody had been born (apologising for her absence) and she'd been sleeping on Amy's sofa ever since. In some ways, Mels was the best kind of flatmate. She always had money—cash—for the rent. She was gone for random intervals, usually for days or weeks at a time. Of course, that meant she couldn't be counted on to babysit very often, but Amy worked from home, so that rarely mattered. But it would have been nice to know what Mels really got up to. (Seducing men in Belarus sounded like something Mels would do, but that couldn't possibly be _everything_.)

"I would have thought that somebody like Sarah Jane Smith would have all sorts of creepy crawlies on her."

"Yeah, well, she didn't. She was perfectly normal."

"Perfectly normal people have crawlies."

"Not everyone does." 

"Don't I?" Mels had gone grumpy-face. She was looking at her wine glass with an intensity that made Amy nervous. "I've always thought… You've never once said. I figured it must have been horrible. But you never once…"

"Mels…?" Amy put her glass down on the counter. "What's wrong?"

The other woman looked up at her, her brown eyes shining and a smile wavering on her lips. "You tell me. You're the one who always knows."

Amy was at a loss. "Nothing," she stammered. "I mean, I've never… There aren't any faeries following you around, if that's what you're asking me."

"Well, I always keep a very close eye on my socks." The joke fell flat.

"I've never been able…" Amy licked her lips. A tiny sound caught her attention and she glanced at the baby monitor sitting on the counter between them. Melody was sighing in her sleep. "I don't see things about you. I never really have." She paused, then added, "Or Rory." She leaned her elbows on the counter. "He always made them go away. Like, they didn't want to be around him."

"And me?"

Amy looked at her, hard, trying to see anything, even something awful, but all she saw was her friend, twenty-two years old, delinquent, too clever for her own good, rebellious, funny. She shook her head. "I just see you." Mels' eyes flickered. "Isn't that a good thing? Believe me, you don't want these things following you around. It's not good to know your own future."

"Would you do something for me?"

She hesitated. "That depends on what you want me to do."

"Help me rob the Treasury." Amy gave her a level look, and Mels rolled her eyes. "You were expecting it to be crime, admit it."

"I wish you wouldn't joke about it," Amy said. "I worry about you. All those months you were gone, no calls, nothing… I was afraid you weren't coming back."

Mels' eyebrow arched, but she didn't bring up Rory this time. "I want you to tell me my fortune."

"No!" Amy gasped.

"Why? Afraid you'll finally see something in me?" It didn't _sound_ like a barb, but it was one.

"I don't see _nothing_ ," Amy bit off. "I see _you_. Just _you_."

Mels waved her hand and threw herself onto the little sofa. "Oh, go on, Pond. Get your cards!"

Amy glared at the counter. The apple sat and smiled back at her.

They settled on either side of the tea table, Mels sprawling on the sofa, Amy on the wicker stool someone had left on the pavement. She'd lit a few candles more for the electricity-saving benefits than mystical energies. Of course, most of her customers expected a certain amount of that exotic theatricality. Secretly, Amy quite liked the long skirts and the incense, but she never would have admitted that to anyone. She didn't have to dress up for Mels, but she did find a stick of patchouli incense. (Which she had grown to like, over time.) The baby monitor sat to one end of the table, next to the wine bottle.

"Is that that same old deck?" Mels asked when it was handed to her.

"No, it's a new one. I made my own. It works a bit better than that other one did."

Mels shrugged and started to shuffle. "Is there something I should be doing?"

"Think of a question, if you like. It doesn't really seem to make a difference to me. When you're done, pick seven."

"Off the top?"

"Whatever you like. It doesn't—"

Mels smirked. "Make a difference. Got it." She cut the deck and took three from one side and four from the other.

Amy helped her lay them out in a line. After a minute or so of study, Mels looked up from the table. "None of the people have faces."

Amy nodded. "I didn't put any in. They change anyway." Empty faces in figures that she had drawn, painted, and découpaged from a hundred different sources. Fine art, photographs, her own imagination. The deck itself was a work of art. 

The thing was, this time the faces really _were_ blank. She focused all of her attention on the cards on the glass between them. She kept her hands on the wooden edges of the table, grounding herself, so to speak. Not because of any sort of mystical claptrap, but because wood always made her feel more solid.

Mels fidgeted with impatience. "What do you see?" she asked.

"Be patient, would you?" Amy snapped. Mels drained her glass.

There wasn't much to them. Four of Wands, Princess of Stars (most decks called them coins or pentacles, but Amy preferred to cut to the chase), Three of Stars, Queen of Stars, Princess of Cups, Eight of Swords, Nine of Stars. She rarely got that many of one suit in a single reading. The first Princess and the Nine were turned on their heads. Not that she could remember what that meant.

She frowned at the Queen. She couldn't remember what she represented in standard tarot. She couldn't remember what _any_ of them meant. Why couldn't she remember? She glanced at Mels, but she was still staring at the cards, oblivious. There was someone behind her, a man. Tall, thin, wearing a black suit. Amy gasped when she saw his face. It was horrible; grey and wrinkled with deep-set eyes. He was wrong, very wrong. He didn't belong here. She'd seen him before, somewhere. When? Who was he, why was he following her?

"What do you see?" Mels asked.

Amy dropped her eyes back to her friend and she forgot. "Nothing." She shook her head. She was relieved, to tell the truth, but she held in the sigh and lied. "I'm sorry."

"It can't be nothing!" she insisted.

"It's… shadows," Amy said, shrugging and shaking her head. She looked at the cards. Every blank face was overcast with a smudge of grey. Symbols were meaningless. "All I can see are shadows."

Mels' face went rigid. "Are you sure you're doing it properly?"

"I told you that it never works for you!"

Mels banged her knee on the table in her haste to get up. Amy's wine glass toppled, splashing wine on the cards. Amy hissed and pushed them out of the path of the liquid. Mels was stumbling away, like she was drunk, but she'd only had the one glass. Amy realised that she was crying. Actual _tears_ were streaming down her cheeks.

"What does that say about me?" Mels sobbed. She never _ever_ cried. Amy scrambled to her feet and tried to hug her. Mels swatted at her and wailed, "Why can't I be like everyone else? What's _wrong_ with me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you," Amy assured her. "It's all right." She touched her friend's cheek. "You're Melody Zucker and you're brilliant."

Mels shied away like a frightened animal, her eyes wide and shifting. "No. _No_. Stay away!" She put out her arms, pushing at the air, but colliding with Amy's ribcage. Too hard. The next thing Amy knew, she was twisting and falling; then she was on her side, and something had shattered. She could feel cold wine trickling over her arm and fingers and something warm trickling down her back. For a few moments, the world seemed soaked in silence.

Mels' face was a picture of horror, wide eyes and open mouth. "Oh my God…! Amy! Amy, I am so sorry!"

Blood and glass. Green wine bottle on the floor, wine everywhere, soaking into the little rug. The table was broken. Glass in the top. Stupid. She'd worried that Melody would hurt herself one of these days, once she really started climbing and jumping. Hadn't foreseen this. A hysterical giggle bubbled from Amy's mouth.

"Amy, Amy…" Mels knelt in the broken glass and threw the wooden side of the table across the room. "Don't move, let me…"

The baby was crying in the next room. Mels froze.

"She's just scared," Amy said. "Help me up. I'll go get her."

"Don't move. I'm so sorry, Amy. I didn't… I don't know what happened!"

"It wasn't your fault. Shhh…" She patted her arm with her right hand. That one didn't hurt. Funny how clear-headed she felt. She pushed herself up and yelped. There was a shard from the top of her wine glass in the side of her left hand. She shuddered and tried not to be sick. Oooh, that was a lot of blood…

Mels was standing halfway across the room now, a mobile in her hand. "I need an ambulance. My friend's hurt; broken glass. Hurry!" Amy pushed herself into a kneeling position while Mels gave the address of the flat. She was back fast, almost as if she'd beamed across the room. "Hold still!" she hissed. "They'll be here in ten minutes." She had a towel from the kitchen and she wiped blood from Amy's forehead. The baby was screaming.

"Get Melody," Amy commanded. "She's frightened."

"She's staying right where she is until you get taken care of." Mels pressed the towel to her upper back. Amy shrieked in pain. 

"I'm sorry! Oh God… There's a big piece…"

"Take it out!" she begged. "Oh God, take it out!"

"I can't! I could do more damage if I did. You've got to be brave, okay? They'll be here soon."

Amy wanted to get off the floor. She was light-headed. "Let me go. I'll wait in my room."

"Stay with me, Amy." Somebody had tied a strip of towel around her arm, like a tourniquet. When had that happened?

A man, no, two men, were standing over her. She didn't know them. She panicked. Moving hurt. She was sick; she wished that she hadn't had the creamy curry. Agony shocked her back to a more lucid state. Or maybe it was fear. She shouted for Mels, for Melody. She was on a stretcher and a woman was asking if she had anyone they should call for her. She told them about a police officer named Jones; she'd been very nice. She wanted to tell them to call Rory, but she held her tongue.


	7. Chapter 7

"You can press charges," said the police constable. Not Jones or Turner. He was weak-chinned and strong-nosed.

"I'm not going to _press charges_ ," Amy scoffed. It was hours or weeks later. There was no telling here. "It was an accident! We'd had a glass, _one_ glass of wine. I don't even think I finished mine. I got clumsy and I fell onto the table. It was an accident."

The constable was not convinced. "Your friend placed the call to 999."

"Of course, she did."

"She wasn't in the flat when the paramedics arrived."

That was what the paramedics had told her, too, but that couldn't be true.

"She was probably in the bedroom. My daughter was crying."

"Your daughter is currently in care."

Amy tried to ignore the icy stab in her gut. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," he replied. Some of the panic subsided. "She'll be well taken care of until the situation can be resolved."

"What 'situation'?" she demanded. "You're not going to take her away from me!" He was steady, you had to give him that. Amy had cowed lesser men with a glare. He was un-cowed and unbent. Amy looked the man over for hangers-on. Pretty clean. A miniature monkey on his back, but it was holding half of an equally miniature joint. Hardly worth worrying about. 

"Your friend failed to give her name to the dispatcher when she called," he said, tapping his tablet with the blunt end of his stylus.

Amy's mind froze. Bollocks. Mels had a record, a very long and interesting one. They'd assume it was an attack or a robbery or something. She'd only just got her friend back again, she couldn't get her into trouble now.

"Ms. Pond?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm a little fuzzy. Blood loss. Lovely, lovely pain killers. What did you say?"

"I said that your friend didn't give her name to the dispatcher when she called 999."

"She was busy freaking out," Amy said reasonably. "She _called_ , didn't she? I said I'm not pressing charges. It wasn't her fault."

The constable's radio chirped and a voice requested his attention. "Excuse me a moment." He stepped out of the room—she had her own _room_ this time, that was something. It certainly helped her avoid the disease crawlies. The constable came back. "If you change your mind, Ms. Pond, please don't hesitate to press charges. Domestic violence is a very serious issue."

"It wasn't domestic violence," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "It was domestic clumsiness." She paused. "But thank you." 

He actually doffed his hat a little bit before leaving.

Amy had only closed her eyes for a few minutes before she heard the nurse come back into the room.

"Everything all right, then?"

"Mels?" Amy lifted her head too quickly and the stitches next to her left shoulder blade pulled painfully. She hissed.

Mels put a finger to her lips. She was wearing light blue nursing scrubs and a name tag that definitely did not belong to her.

"What are you doing?" Amy mouthed. 

Mels moved around, checking monitors and IV drips. She had that intensity again. "Looks like you lost a lot of blood," she said, letting go of the dark red bag suspended from the stand.

"Could have been worse," Amy replied, playing along a little. She must have been trying to avoid the police. Unless she was just playing dress up for fun, like they'd used to do when they were kids. "A friend put a tourniquet on my arm." She raised her left arm, modelling her bandaged hand and the gauze that covered the five stitches she'd received in her arm. A piece of glass had nicked an artery, the doctor had told her. If she'd been alone, she might have bled out before the paramedics reached her. Amy wondered if that were really true, then tried not to think about it anymore. What would happen to Melody? She would have to be more careful. No more hospitals.

"I don't know what happened." Mels wasn't looking at her directly.

"It was an accident," she said for the hundredth time. "Would everybody stop _moaning_?"

"No. I mean, I literally _cannot remember_."

"You were upset. It's okay."

Shaking her head, Mels picked up the medical tablet and made notes. Did she actually understand this stuff? It was possible. Mels knew a lot about a wide range of subjects. It helped her do crime, she said. "It isn't. I…" She bit her tongue, then reluctantly raised her eyes to meet her. "It's not the first time it's happened."

"What?" Amy wondered. She wanted to make a joke, but she couldn't think of one. She hated Mels being serious. It felt so _wrong_. Mels had always acted as if life were one big joke and only she knew the punchline. Technically, this was a situation that ought to have been taken seriously, but by everyone else. Amy needed her friend to do what she always did, to laugh it off and make her feel better. It was what got her through the things she saw, through fussing baby and fear that she wasn't good enough, that she was ruining her daughter's life just because she was scared. (Cracks everywhere. Canary Wharf had a giant scar running through the upper levels. Stars going out, summer heat roasting them all…)

"Not the first time that I've lost time." Mels replaced the tablet and fidgeted with the blanket, smoothing it around the corners of the mattress. "It's usually not enough that I'd notice. But sometimes I lose several minutes. Or I find myself in the middle of a room and can't remember why I'm there."

"Everyone does that."

"Not me."

"Have you…" Amy licked her lips. She was the _last_ person in the world to recommend someone go see a psychiatrist, but… "… got a scan, or anything?"

Mels smirked like she knew why she was hesitating. She changed the subject. "Melody's a few levels down in the daycare."

A muscle in Amy's chest—not her heart, she didn't think—relaxed. "Good. You know, I actually thought for a second that they were going to try to take her away from me?" She forced a laugh. Mels didn't even smile.

"They're releasing you in the morning, once they see you're back to normal levels. I forged a prescription for extra painkillers, for when they send you home. Don't thank me." Amy opened her mouth, but Mels cut her off. "You should take Melody back to the flat. I won't be back for a while."

"I told the police I don't want to press any charges. You don't have to go anywhere!"

"I threw you through a table, Amy," Mels said quietly. "And I don't know _why_. It might have been an accident. Who knows? I don't always know my own strength. But I can't be around you or Melody. Not right now." She smiled, but her eyes were hollow. Amy could almost see an outline of something tall and thin standing just behind her, but it had no real shape or presence. She shivered. "Good luck with the new job."

"Mels…!" Amy started to get out of bed, but there were all these _things_ attached to her. Stupid blood bag. She'd had a pint already, why did she need more? "Melody, don't!"

Her friend lingered in the doorway, holding the edge of her stolen stethoscope in one hand, her other on the light switch. "Keep a close eye on her for me." She threw a blazing smile back over her shoulder. "See you later, Pond."

§

Amy looked from her tablet to the television. Melody sat on the play mat, gleefully flinging her favourite plush frog aside and tearing a brightly coloured wood-block fortress asunder. The toddler squealed with delight. Her strawberry curls haloed her face. People always said how angelic she looked when they were out in the park or heading to the shops together. Of course, the toothy grin she wore at times like these, when she was mistress of her tiny domain, was the complete opposite of cherubic.

The telly was still set to the same thing it had been half an hour ago when she'd turned it on. Colours and words, names of shapes, a trio of talking animals. She knew all their names—Bubbles, Lagoona, Rudy—but that was only over-exposure. She tried to think what it was that made her look up.

Her tablet lay in her lap. It was open to a collection of articles from the _Times_ , her newspaper, written by Sarah Jane Smith. She'd been enjoying it, mostly, at least the last one. President Thatcher and the decline of the healthcare system. Smith had been a great critic of Thatcher back in the 80s. It had made her pretty unpopular, especially as the government had grown ever more cosy with Cybus and its various satellite companies. But somehow, as much as people hated and vilified Smith, she always had work. Ironic, since the _London Times_ had been owned by Cybus as well. Amy was still trying to figure out how she'd managed it.

Melody pushed herself to her feet and trundled across the mat and over to the sofa. Amy happily put her tablet aside and swept her daughter up and onto her lap before checking the clock on the side table. Twelve forty-seven. About time for a little walk around the park before nap time.

It was a Sunday afternoon in late August, so there were a lot of families out. Amy and Melody played in the sand pit, digging with the little green plastic spade and bucket. 

"One of these days we'll go to the seaside," Amy promised aloud. "And we can build the biggest sandcastle you've ever seen." She poured a little bit from her bottled water into the sand while Melody prepared an ever-widening hill. Grinning, Amy made a bailey for the mott, even going to far as to crenelate the top a bit. Melody, nearly two and a half years old and thus lacking appreciation for medieval architecture, smashed the whole thing with her knees when she crawled across it, babbling happily about nonsense that even Amy barely understood. She suspected though, it had something to do with the recent desire for a kitten. (Lagoona was a cat, and she was Melody's favourite.)

They drew pictures in the sand, some of which Melody attempted to eat. Amy's smile grew a little more fixed as her daughter made pointy things in the sand. (When she asked Melody what they were, she said, "Stars.") Then she drew a few of her own. The night sky might be darkening a little more every night; by the time Melody was grown up, astronomers predicted that there would be nothing left in the sky but the moon and a small smattering of the youngest stars.

Something was different today, strangely hopeful, but it was hard to say what that was. Everything around them was the same as it always was. Same people, same creepy crawlies hovering here and there, most of them benign or at least ignorable. Amy didn't pay them much heed these days, since Mum Things demanded the majority of her attention. It was a little different when she was working. The advice column she'd taken on in February was starting to really take off. She didn't have her own office or anything, but she did have a desk in the bullpen, which felt like victory. (It felt _grown up_ , which was a strange but largely satisfying feeling.) The _Times_ had nice child-minding facilities in the building, so she didn't have to worry about Melody so much during the day.

Even so, whenever she would look up from her computer, there was a picture of Melody there. (Not looking at the camera, but at her first birthday cake. The arms holding her were Mels'.)

They walked back to the flat… Amy carried Melody back to the flat… and then it was nap-time. Which was a struggle as always. Amy read a little while her daughter slept. Then she started supper. (The chicken needed time to marinate before she cooked it.) The kitchen in this flat was much nicer than in her last one, but the living room was smaller. But there was a _window_ , and a big one, that let them see just over the tops of the buildings across the street. They were only on the fourth floor; someday, Amy resolved, they would live at the very top of some big, posh building and they'd be able to see clear to the London Eye. Things were good, not perfect, but they had all they needed to eat, the rent was paid, and she even liked her job (even if her direct supervisor was a prig sometimes). 

She paused by the fridge and peeled back Melody's latest crayon swirls ("It's a kitten!" she'd said enthusiastically) to reveal the older, bent-cornered photograph that lay below. It was held firmly in place by a small sushi-shaped magnet. Amy-in-the-picture had her arm around smiling Rory's shoulders. She looked so young in her baggy jumper and her long hair all around her shoulders. Rory looked… like Rory. His mouth was open as he let out a 'whoa!' and took their picture with his phone. 

Amy let the drawing fall back, once again hiding the past from sight. Across the flat, Melody was loudly demanding to be let out of her cot.

It wasn't until later, after supper and putting Melody back to bed, when Amy was back on the sofa reading that she got that feeling again. Not missing Rory and Mels—she always missed Rory and Mels, even if she managed to convince herself sometimes that she didn't—but that strange _new_ feeling. 

She left her tablet behind and went to the window. It was night, but it was London, so it was never truly dark. Just the same, she looked out at the sky and she could see _stars_. A thousand million of them, burning white and blue and red and yellow, just where they ought to be, all of them. As if they'd never been gone.

Amy covered her mouth and wiped her eyes and she laughed. Then she went to Melody's bedroom and (quietly) sneaked in to kiss her on the forehead. 

"They're back," she whispered. She kissed Melody's hair; Melody wiped her face with her soft little fist and slept on.


End file.
